Discovering Digital Media Arts

New Blog

2009-01-11T11:04:00.001-05:00

http://www.craigfollick.com/blog

Go. I actually update this one.

Skate Deck

2007-12-11T14:31:00.000-05:00

Sooooo here's the skate deck project. It was a fun little project. We had to design a few decks, then get one approved by Joe for us to complete in Illustrator and print and mount on either a real skate deck or some foam core. I chose to mount on foam core due to cost... and due to Kim's dad being awesome and getting us some sticky backed foam core. SO... here's my original drawing...

(ZOMG SIGNED OFF BY JOE)

And now for the completed deck. We had to add in this "P70" logo somewhere in our deck. Luckily for me my design was quite simple, and thus allowed me to make the logo the centre of attention instead of tucking it off somewhere un-noticeable. So... THE FINAL DESIGN!

And THEN... I have another picture of the deck mounted on the foam core... here we go!

Also... look at this mess!
Mounting is a messy job. -_-

Tattoozle?

2007-12-11T14:13:00.000-05:00

So... the tattoo project. Yeah. I made several tattoos, but only ended up using one due to the complexity of the other two and my lack of really good photos to use with the tattoos.

This is the first image... The tattoo is on the bottom of my arm.

This is the second image... and it's clearly on my neck. Yay fire flower!

And in this final image... the tattoo is on Samina's arm.

So... that would be the tattoo project. Here's another tattoo I made that I was particularly proud of, but never really used...

(The emblem on his hat, his eyes, nose, and mouth... and the ring are transparent. I'll bet Nate would like this one. :P)

Okay so it's time I got started here...

2007-12-11T14:12:00.000-05:00

Haha... sorry for the... er... LONG HIATUS. I've gotten lazy with the blog as I got less lazy with my other work... so yeah. Here we go. I'm going to post some stuff I've done recently. Look for later posts!

NUUUUU

2007-12-10T09:09:00.001-05:00

OKAY OKAY I LIES!

Gahhh!

2007-11-06T08:31:00.000-05:00

No updates in a long time... but I'm finishing up on a couple things that I'm doing on the side... plus after class I should have something coloured in Photoshop. I'll post tonight... I swear! (Posting now so as to no longer feel like I'm ignoring my blog. -_-)

Sorry, sorry!

2007-10-18T02:15:00.000-04:00

I know I said I'd update last Wednesday, but I didn't... nor did I update Thursday, Friday, or any other day up 'til now. So what's new with me? Well... I finished my sketch trace for DMA 101 (New Media Tools)... I used mine and Amanda's cat sketch for our toy project that was shown in an earlier post. It looks something like this:

(I found one thing I actually completely LOVE about Vista... THE SNIPPING TOOL, OMG.)

So yay. Also, we (Alex, Kim, Danielle and I) finished our video proposal... which seems like it's going to be a lot of fun to film. I'm not going to spoil it right now but if you look in their blogs you may find something... but I'm not sure... hmm... Oh well. Tomorrow we're going to work on our next sound project (Red Shoes told us last week that we'd be getting a new project this week... so we booked on Monday for Thursday, and got the project on Tuesday. Yeah, we're that on top of things.) and it promises to be a lot of fun. It's kind of like the soundscape project, but with a video game instead. I'll have to upload the soundscape if we ever get around to converting it to .mp3!

Back to the toy project... Joe said he liked the science cat sketch the best out of all of them, and that we could do something to do with... science cats. So that's what we're doing. Science cats. It actually is more fun than it sounds... I swear!

On the home side of things... I've just been keeping my room clean, and hanging out. I went to the Rainforest Cafe at Yorkdale Mall with Amanda (not this Amanda) for dinner on Tuesday night, which was a lot of fun. (I've never had mashed potatoes for dessert before... I don't think... (Mom, correct me if I'm wrong) that could just be a product of our weirdness / cheapness / fullness.) It's a really cool restaurant. We also saw "We Own The Night" which was a good movie. This one creepy guy sat like... pretty much right next to us in an almost empty theatre and made weird noises and generally creeped us out the whole time. Yay. I'm going home for the study break, and we don't have a TON of work to do over it, (SO FAR... *crosses fingers* ... I'm looking at you, Sumit and Daria...) which is nice. Anyways, that is all. Toodles.

Also, as Alex is shamelessly plugging the Orange Box, I may as well shamelessly plug Sin and Punishment: Successor of the Earth, AND Winamp 5.5 . So... Sin and Punishment. I saw screens for this in Nintendo Power years ago, and it never came stateside. I always wanted to play it! Finally, from a great deal of message board whining from Treasure fans no doubt, Nintendo has localized it and released it on the Wii Virtual Console. It's quite an amazing shooter... simple controls and really fun to play. If you have a Wii, get it now... Please. At 1200 Wii Points it's not cheap... but it's worth it. One of the best N64 games out there. Nintendo did us a HUGE favour here... support this title so that they have incentive to localize more old Japan-Only Nintendo games on the Virtual Console.

And now to Winamp 5.5 . Coinciding with Winamp's 10th anniversary, Nullsoft has released Winamp 5.5 . Winamp has always been my favourite music player, and for a good reason. It has many options, many useful plugins available, many skins available by talented artists, and most of all, it's a powerful little piece of software. It's released with Winamp Remote, an application that allows you to stream your music over the internet to your friends or just another computer when you're out. Many new visualizations are included, as well as a new context-sensitive info viewer, a shiny new base skin set (Bento), and a huge preferences overhaul. The media library is a lot better laid out now too. If you haven't tried Winamp before... try it now. If you have tried Winamp before... try 5.5 now! GOGOGO!

-________-

2007-10-09T15:10:00.000-04:00

Lack of sleeep. Blah.

I'm working on my art projects, and my illustrator sketch project tomorrow... also meeting with Amanda again to discuss more character concepts. Yey.

Tonight I'm supposed to go out with Minji and go to the mall and karaoke... I'll post pics when I most likely update tomorrow. Also I'll get around to posting those pics of the studio tour on Friday although I don't have a lot. (compared to some people... I'm looking at you, Danielle!)

That is all.

So... Awesome day!

2007-10-05T00:49:00.000-04:00

Holy crap Batman... this day was so long and chock full of working nonstop that I HAD FUN AND WTF. Sorry for my lack of sense but I think I'm extremely full of energy right now. So I got up... late... cause I was up... late... and it was totally 8:40 and I was running late... and I showed up 15 minutes late for class. Luckily so did the teacher. We did a test. I felt I did fairly well... then we went and had lunch... at 11am... which worked out OK. We listened to this guy named Andy Juan do a little concert in The Hive... and there wasn't a big crowd but he was pretty good so I bought his CD. I finished up my logo... rushed off to print it at York Lanes, and rushed back to English class. I got my essay back... not a bad mark... but I wish I'd done better. Oh well, next time. English isn't everything. I can spell just fine! XD;;

So I sketched some more of the nameless cat character while the teacher was going on and on about comma splices, run on sentences, and fuses. I had none of those, so sketching was okay to do I guess. I followed along in my text at least. So then I met Danielle at her locker... and we mounted our logos. I seem to be good with an exacto-knife... which should come in handy over the next 2 years. We rushed off to hand in our logos, then visited Amanda and Laura in their sound suite as they were finishing off their Soundscape. We also ran into Samina and uh... girl whose name escapes me... and learned that they had a bit of trouble... which had us a little panicked... Alex had done most of the setup up to this point in the suites so we thought we were screwed without him. Turns out we were... but with a little help I eventually got everything set up correctly. Being cramped in a 5x5 room for 6 hours isn't as bad as you'd think... it was good for laughs at least... because of Kim's hilarious concept. We actually finished a little early and went out for Pita Pit. Enjoyable as always. That old man who works there is awesome... and so is his son who owns it! (Note to self: Print U of G GO bus schedule for old man for next time you visit Pita Pit.) Getting home from school after having worked all day is exciting... I've never had so much work at one time in my life... well I have... but not that I really wanted to complete. I'm looking forward to the studio tours tomorrow... I think I'll take some pictures with my camera. I have to get up early so... off I go!

2007-10-03T17:57:00.000-04:00

So... Today I went and met Amanda for lunch, so we could come up with some kind of character/toy design that we liked. We had Popeye's Chicken and Biscuits (and Onion Rings) and walked around aimlessly... but we finally sat down at a spot in the TEL basement. We came up with some ridiculous things... including a barrel of ravens (much less fun than a barrel of monkeys), an action figure that set on fire when exposed to the sun (pyromaniac child's dream), masked vegetables that always seem to be yelling (Amanda's carrot was pretty hardcore), hang-gliding old people, and toy people who shake their fists repeatedly (MALCOM O_o).

HOWEVER we eventually seemed to settle upon one little character... he looks like a sad kitty. I just drew a circle on the page and added droopy ears and a face... and Amanda drew the body... and I drew the tail... and there he was. He is so far nameless... but what we came away with was a cute little cat fellow that seems to get himself into dangerous situations with a sort of depressed look on his face all the time.

So this was the initial sketch. Pretty rough. They all kind of are so far.

This is where we decided he gets dangerous... although keeping that expression. That bazooka looks home-made. What a crazy fellow.

And here he is playing with chemicals. Woot. Amanda drew most of this.

So there we go... That's most of what was in my sketchbook, I think there's more in Amanda's... such as him lying in the street after being run over. Yeah. So any name suggestions, anyone? We've been discussing names, but none of them seem to work so far. What do you think?

Something Different: The Walk

2007-10-01T01:31:00.001-04:00

So... I walk all the time. I walk through Fergus, Guelph, Toronto, etc., but I never walk around where I live... Ariss. It's a really small town-y/village/hamlet/burg thing. It's mostly trees and farms. We have a F***book group though... so that's cool... I guess. Anyways, I took my best friend (because I wanted to share the experience of doing something different) and said "We're going for a walk around Ariss, dammit!" and so that's what we did. (He's very submissive to my selfish demands. "Ben, DO MY BIDDING!") Anyways... I wound up with quite a few beautiful pictures, a lot of nostalgia, a good chat with Ben, and good memories. That's what I took away from this. There weren't as many fall colours showing as I'd have liked to see... but what was there was good. I'll now get into a few of the pics in the album that stood out for me.

So here's Ben. He's certainly a funny looking guy but he's definitely my oldest friend. I forced him to go on this walk, but he didn't seem to put up much of a fight. We had some great times, though.

Here is a shot where I got up close to some flowers or weeds or whatever they were and took a pic... I thought they stood out really well where everything else was orange, yellow or green. Or brown like the path. However, what really caught my eye was...

This plant. As you can see in the picture, it has green leaves, and is obviously dying or going dormant for the winter but... two or three of the leaves are REALLY red. I really like this shot.

Here's the path we were walking down. It used to be train tracks up until around the time I was born... then they were taken out. You used to be able to hear trains going by all the time apparently... there's only a small field between what used to be the tracks and my house. I wish they hadn't taken the tracks out... I love trains and I think it would have been cool to have one go by my house a lot.

Now this I found weird... the trees that lined the path had sort of fallen over and made a weird square. Cool.

Here is where I strayed a little from the path, because I remembered the spot where I found this rusty farm equipment when I was about nine years old. It turns out that it's still there, and still just as rusty. I used to come here with an old friend of mine, and we actually went off into a forest nearby and had a snow fort in the winter and played there. It was a pretty nostalgic moment for me. Ben talked about how he works on his grandfather's farm sometimes and he's glad he gets to use a tractor instead of this stuff. Now that, I can't relate to... but it looks like this tool would suck to use compared to a tractor or something like that.

This is the shot that we decided to entitle "I'm a fucking tourist.". What kind of idiot tourist goes to rural Southern Ontario, anyways? Obviously Ben.

The sky had some really wispy clouds today... and I thought that was awesome. Ever since I watched the anime Air I've been paying a hell of a lot more attention to the sky and the way it looks. (If you haven't seen Air... watch it. It's so sad! I love it though...)

So this was after we got off the trail and had gone down a paved road onto a dirt road. The sign was right outside a small makeshift personal horse track... so I assumed that the owners just didn't want people shooting their horses.

"Oh hay Jesus, I didn't expect to see you here!" *shuns*
Why the hell does this crap have to be here?

Here in Ariss we have interesting street names. Actually I think the only REAL street name we have in Ariss is my street: "Ariss Glen Drive". The rest are all called "County Road #XX" or "Sideroad XX" or "Xst/nd/rd/th Line E" or "Pilkington something". Go Craig's road!

This is at the same corner as Jesus and the boring street names. I just liked how the pavement, gravel, leaves, and grass all turned at once in a nice curve.

So we picked up Rachael, Ben's sister, from their house which is quite close to Jesus corner. I've known their family for most of my life, and I'm quite close to Ben and Rachael and being an only child I consider them my siblings... and they consider me theirs. Anyways, Rachael got a little hyper running down the road... and I snapped a pic of it. A little blurry, but I love it anyways.

So here's where it was getting a little darker, so my camera's flash started going off and making everything look darker. I took this with the flash off, and I don't have steady hands... so that explains the blurriness here. I really REALLY hate the fact that some people in the country (especially those whose properties are close to the road) take it upon themselves to keep A WHOLE BUNCH OF JUNK METAL in their yards. What the hell are you going to do with that? My 4 year old seriously obsolete digital camera would probably sell for more money than all the shit in your yard, you crazy pack rat. Clean up your dump so we don't have to look at it, especially from the road.

A pic of a nice orange fall-coloured tree using Ben's head as a tripod. Ben has many uses. Except he's more like a bipod.

So as our trip drew to a close, I took quite a few shots of the sunset. Obviously a lot more beautiful in person, with the breeze blowing on your face, and the crickets and other crawlies chirping and stuff... but it still looks alright in this photo. I love the sky.

Well, here's where our little walk drew to a close. This is the stop sign pole at the end of the road that Ben and Rachael live on. The lights over in the distance in the top right of the photo are right by the end of the road that I live on. I'd just like to say that this was a great pic to be the last one I took... because I can say: "Party's over!"

So, in the end I had a great time just walking with my siblings... and I got some wonderful pictures... Something else that's different now is that I have to take a 6:30AM bus back to school in the morning... and it's already 2:25AM as I finish typing so... it's about time for me to end this post. Good times.

2007-09-29T20:35:00.000-04:00

So Thursday I opened 39 doors. Not as many as Tuesday... but I guess it's cause I don't have as many classes that day. I also didn't do as much cooking as I did on Tuesday. How exciting!

So... As something out of the ordinary I took an earlier bus. It seemed like it took a different route... I wasn't entirely sure if it did because I'm not exactly used to the route yet. I saw a rainbow, which was nice. Kim took a picture of it, maybe I'll post it later if I can get it from her.

I'm planning on taking a walk tomorrow afternoon if I get the chance. I love to go on walks... but I don't often do it... and grey fall days are my favourite time of year, so I hope tomorrow's weather reflects that.

I'm starting to think that I'm getting bogged down with work... I'm good with it because it's all work I enjoy doing, but it's still getting to seem a little overwhelming. I guess all I can do is try to keep up. I'm still not sure where to go with the sports logo... but I'm sure if I sit down to it after my walk tomorrow I may find some direction.

2007-09-26T00:00:00.000-04:00

So... Today I opened 48 doors. That's nuts, considering my life is condensed into about 500m of space. I live so close to the school... but it still boggles my mind that I opened that many doors. I'm going to count again on Thursday (I don't plan on leaving the house tomorrow, really...) so we'll see how that goes. I'm gonna post some pics of the doors I open in that update... that should be terribly exciting.

I worked on my logo in class... and I really don't know where to start with all the details yet. I'm messing with the layers... and I'm deciding whether to put Blue over White or the other way around.

Also, Joe I know you're reading this so here's a link I found that's about 10 years old. I laughed at it... because it goes against everything you mention about advertising on the web. I guess they couldn't really forsee this that long ago. Although it does sort of forsee the kind of advertising that is on the web today, in the form of corporate sites and such...

First Post!

2007-09-24T01:07:00.001-04:00

So... this would be my first post here. It's late so I'm not going to get all long-winded like I usually do about things... I'm tired. I'll just post a little picture I made for my friend quickly a few months ago when he asked me for a pic of him as a zombie. Night.

Looking at it now, it looks a lot better avatar-sized! >_<